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Down on Mainstream

October 5, 2012

De Buck Gallery is pleased to announce gallery artist Zevs’ participation in a group exhibition entitled Down on Mainstream to be held at de Garage, part of the Mechelen Cultural Center, in Mechelen, Belgium. The exhibition will be on view from September 29 through November 25, 2012.

Zevs (pronounced “Zeus”) joins Marc Bijl, David Neirings & Mo Becha, Karl Philips, Steve Schepens and Andy Waumans in this exhibition that examines the subversion of popular culture by these artists who stand on the fringes of the mainstream. The works selected for the exhibition reflect a consistently “underground,” urban usage of mainstream iconography to create a commentary on the unmistakably commercial world that we all inhabit.

Since first making his name as a street artist during the 1990s, Zevs’ work has been representative of this attitude. Zevs appropriates iconic logos and other culturally significant imagery and “liquidates” them with his trademark technique, transforming seemingly solid images into evocatively dripping ones that are perhaps more unstable than they seem. Through this treatment, Zevs thereby attacks the omnipresent commercialism that the iconography represents. These logos are recognizable worldwide, and this recognition contributes to the instantaneous impact of Zevs’ artwork.

Many of the works included in Down on Mainstream have a distinctly American slant to them, with subjects ranging from Mickey Mouse to Coca-Cola, thereby critiquing the both cultural and commercial dominance of these brands. While expressing ambivalence towards the icons by utilizing them both as aesthetic emblems and as objects with which to critique commercial society, these works all maintain a markedly urban feel, primarily through their transformation via liquidation, a method that was first developed on the streets.

Zevs was born in France in 1977, and first gained renown as a street artist in Paris during the 1990s. Since then, he has extensively participated in exhibitions and performances worldwide, including at the 2010 Moscow Biennial, Ny Carlsberg Glyptothek (Copenhagen), and the historic Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich). He currently lives and works in Paris and Berlin.